News & Notes

China-Japan air travel recovering

Dec 08 (Sat ), 2012

Air travel demand has started to recover on routes between China and Japan after previously being hammered because of the territorial dispute between the two countries.

"Demand from business class passengers is coming back to the level before [the disputes happened]," said Shinichiro Ito, the president and chief executive of All Nippon Airways. "Sooner or later, a full recovery will come, probably next year."

However, leisure travel still had not shown signs of recovery as tourists would rather delay their trips until the tension subsided, Ito said.

"We forecast that December's passenger volume will swing back to as much as 80 per cent of the level in the same period last year," he said.